Kevin Klatt, PhD, RD

Registered Dietitians get attacked by a lot of sub-groups in nutrition for not being one of a myriad of things, depending upon the dietary mantra of the group - low carb'ers accuse RDs of heresy for recommendations concerning the consumption of carbohydrates and allotting for some level of added sugars in the diet; paleo'ers attack RDs because they push whole grains and dairy, purporting that these are two of the major toxins in our food supply; vegetarians/vegans say that RDs are pushing cancer-causing animal products that harm the environment and cause unnecessary suffering. These are just a few of the major nutrition-minded groups that have asserted their dominant, superior nutrition viewpoint and attacked the current medical model of nutrition. But who is correct? Put any of these 3 major groups alone in a room together and everyone may very well not make it out alive, or at least without being covered in Red paint and/or being accused of ignoring your primal blueprint. ...

If you're reading this expecting me to either endorse or stand in opposition to high-protein diets, turn back now. In nutrition, it's difficult to make a simplistic recommendation out of the mounds of scientific literature that exists on a topic - I can't imagine the stress that the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) is under while making population-level recommendations. Protein is probably the most well studied of the macronutrients, from a physiological and biochemical perspective - the worldwide obsession with ensuring adequate 'complete' protein intake enveloped a lot nutritional sciences research in the 1900's. From this research, we learned a lot about amino acid metabolism/catabolism and understand the basic needs of most humans. It's known now that it's not necessary to only eat complete proteins, and that eating a combination of plant foods can provide all of the amino acids - hence, vegetarians not completely wasting...

I've mentioned before that, if one is trying to emulate a past hominid's diet in an attempt to have a more 'ancestrally-aligned' pattern of eating, it is rather difficult to accurately do this because it is rather difficult to discern what our ancestors actually ate (among a host of other reasons: plant domestication, methods of processing, which hominid, etc etc). Researchers in this field are able to chemically analyze calcified plaques from fossilized neanderthal teeth. There are a couple issues with this - most notably - the last meal effect: just because you find these remnants doesn't necessarily mean that individuals were eating these foods regularly. It would require a large cohort of fossilized teeth from diverse regions to make a more robust statement that Neanderthals regularly consumed these food products. Past assumptions were that Neanderthals were overwhelmingly carnivorous and rarely consumed plants foods; recently, analyses of tooth plaque have ...

That title is half a fiber joke and half pointing to the need for a Nutrition Fact Check website (similar to the politics version ). Fiber also happens to be a great way to slow down digestion, to reduce the surge of blood sugar following a higher carbohydrate meal and maintain satiety for longer (1). I see/hear a lot of things about Glycemic Index and many of them are not factual, misguided or simply untrue. The most common myth I've heard lately is that all whole grains have the same Glycemic Index value as processed grains (it varies a lot, some do , some don't - see below). Besides the fact that one should be using the Glycemic Load and ditching the Glycemic Index, it's hard to substantiate those rumors - I don't like to call out web sites, simply type into google "whole wheat same GI as white wheat" if you want to see the numerous websites passing around this myth. If you would like a reliable source regarding general Glycemic Indices, try this Ha...

Fatty Acids Cheat-Sheet : Saturated : Long Chain   Palmitic - primary saturated fatty acid in most diets - high in beef or pork fat but low in vegetable oils - increases LDL and HDL, little effect on the ratio of Total Cholesterol to HDL Stearic - primarily found in beef or pork fat and in small amounts in vegetable oils - does not increase LDL - believed to be rapidly converted to a monounsaturated fatty acid after absorption  Medium Chain (don't require carnitine to cross mitochondrial membrane - more likely to be used as an energy substrate than for storage) Lauric - greatly increases total cholesterol, moreso increasing HDL than LDL Myristic - increases serum total cholesterol, both LDL/HDL - not a large % of fatty acid intake - doesn't effect TC:HDL much Short Chain butyric, propanoic acid - not generally found in the human diet, except from fermentation of fibers in the gut  - potential preventative role in colon cancer Monounsaturated : contains 1 ci...

Alkaline diets have blown up in popularity. The theory is that over a long time, eating more foods that act acidic in the body (not necessarily having to be acidic in its food form outside the body) will lead to a leaching of calcium from the bones to neutralize blood pH. Some foods claimed to acidify the blood are simple starches, sodas (rich in phosphoric acid) and animal products (higher in cysteine/methionine, sulphuric amino acid). The blood sits at a pH of 7.34-7.45 - this is very tightly regulated, because too high or too low a pH can alter the rates of enzymatic reactions, protein structures, etc. You wouldn't make it too long if your pH dropped out of this homeostatic range. This all sounds fine and dandy right? More acid-acting foods, more calcium removed from bone to neutralize this. I've said this before - there isn't always a simplistic logic that allows you to infer anything about health.I've always been very apprehensive to accept this theory, because...

Here's the best recipe for an awesome nutrition article: 1. Ignore Health - Health Sshmealth. It's all about body image. If you're writing an article about nutrition, make sure to convince the reader that their primary goal is weight loss and/or achieving physical perfection. Longevity is so lame; who wants to live until 85 if you don't look sexy doing it?? If they haven't been convinced by every TV commercial and diet out that they should be unhappy with their bodies, you may want to tie up those loose ends and seal the deal - a high self esteem adds like 10 lbs, i've heard. If they don't already believe that weight loss is super difficult, you may want to also cement that concept into their minds - i mean, weight loss is super hard, but luckily, they've found your program. You may consider giving yourself the title of 'the Christ' at this point, but humility promotes fatty acid oxidation. 2. Trash the Current Recommendations - obviously, th...